a. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a tapered roller bearing.
b. Description of the Prior Art
A tapered roller bearing is a radial bearing using tapered rollers as rolling elements and, as shown in FIG. 2, it is composed of an inner ring 10, an outer ring 20, tapered rollers 30, and a cage 40. The inner ring 10 has a conical surface-like raceway 12 in its outer periphery, and a cone front face rib 14 and a cone back face rib 16 on opposite sides of the raceway. The outer ring 20 has a conical surface-like raceway 22 in its inner periphery. The tapered rollers 30 are rollably interposed between the raceways 12 and 22 of the inner and outer rings 10 and 20. The cage 40 has a plurality of pockets circumferentially disposed at predetermined circumferential intervals, with each pocket having a tapered roller 30 received therein.
The tapered roller bearing is designed so that the tapered rollers 30 are in linear contact with the raceways 12 and 22 of the inner and outer rings 10 and 20 and so that, as shown in FIG. 1, the raceways 12 and 22 of the inner and outer rings 10 and 20 and the apexes of the tapered rollers 30 focus at a point O on the center axis of the bearing, making it possible to receive radial load and one-way axial load. The raceways 12 and 22 of the inner and outer rings 10 and 20 differ in conical angle from each other, so that the resultant of forces of loads applied from the raceways to the tapered rollers 30 acts in a direction to push the tapered rollers 30 to the cone back face rib 16 of the inner ring 10. Therefore, the tapered rollers 30 are guided in a state in which their large end faces 32 are pushed against the cone back face rib 16, where slide contact occurs. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 3, the cone back face rib surface 18 is a flat surface with its generatrix y forming a predetermined angle with the center axis; the large end face 32 of the tapered roller 30 makes slide contact with this flat surface.